The Purpose Driven Life

In 7 Ways to a Wonderful Life available FREE at our website http://anamcaraexperience.org/ I write about one of the ways as being the way of purpose.

As one who is a Believer in Exile I am drawn to the writings of Rick Warren who wrote the 30 million world wide bestseller entiteld "The Purpose Driven Life - What on Earth am I here for?" This is a great title and a great question.

One of the key aspects of Rick Warren's invitation to a Purpose Driven Life is the idea that God has a plan for each of us. He begins the chapter "You are not an Accident" with two quotes. These are

"I am your Creator. You were in my care even before you were born." - Isiah 44.2a and

"God doesn`t play dice." - Albert Einstien.

Firstly, if God has a plan for you then it has to be understood that this plan has a time line and a time limit. Otherwise it would not be a plan. A plan by definition means something to be completed and must therefore have a time limit.

If you didn`t have a time limit then the plan would go on forever and thus not fall within the limits we identify as a plan. Thus because God is beyond time and yet manifests within time we can`t really say that God sat and individually planned it that way.

A plan is something that tends to be linear. it begins and it ends thus it cannot be of the mind of God which has no beginning or ending.

The idea of God having a plan for your life is very comforting for many people. It invites a purpose even if you don`t. It suggest that God cares and taht you were in the care of God even before you were born. This is an idea that 30 million people feel drawn to examine. It is an idea that will comfort believers who think that God is some mythic being who to quote from "The Purpose Driven Life"

Everyday was recorded in your book.

Thus one is given the idea that God literally has a book with your name on it with an individual plan that is predetermined by your Creator from birth to death. Is this really the why you are here. If it is then were is your free will in all this. For this writer this is simply pouring old wine into new wineskins.

A Creator God is not a planner. A Creator God is Love. Love is not separate from who you are. Love does not plan. Love dances. It dances forever. It isn`t something that ends. It expands. The dance has a structure like music but within the dance and within the music is the intention to become the dance and become the music. You don`t become the dance through planning. You become the dance through surrender. You dance out of time not deeper into the plan which is connected to the idea that you are separate from God.

The dream of the one separate from Love is that God has a plan and a purpose for their lives. This pupose is realised within what Jesus of Nazareth called Life. It isn`t some nice idea of God writing your life script and caring about you. It is a more radical realisation that Life and Love and God and you are not separate. To suggest that there is a plan is to suggest separteness.